Barry M. Bradford

Key facts

• He is listed at The Roslin Institute and the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, University of Edinburgh, as a core research scientist (research fellow), promoted to Lecturer in 2021, and he manages the Roslin histology facility.
• He studied neuroscience at Edinburgh (BSc 1998, MSc 2007) and was awarded his Edinburgh PhD in July 2016; his prion work began after he joined the Institute for Animal Health Neuropathogenesis Unit in 2000.
• A UK government page published June 2026 describes him as a lecturer and research lead at Roslin with more than 25 years of prion disease research, and lists him on the Advisory Committee on Animal Feedingstuffs, which advises the Food Standards Agency.
• He is co-investigator, with Mabbott as principal investigator, on the CJD Foundation grant Haematopoietic stem cell gene therapy as a novel therapeutic for CNS prion disease, running 1 March 2026 to 29 February 2028.
• He was principal investigator on a BBSRC project, Lipid Metabolism and Brain Health (July 2023 to March 2024), and on a 2020 project on astrocyte heterogeneity and CD44 across neurodegenerative diseases.
• As first author in Glia (July 2022) he reported that microglia-deficient Csf1r deltaFIRE mice developed prion disease much sooner, with less prion build-up in the brain and earlier reactive astrocytes, which suggests microglia protect mainly by restraining harmful astrocytes rather than by clearing prions.
• As first author in Scientific Reports (June 2024) he found that CD44, though raised in reactive astrocytes, is not needed for glial activation or for prion disease in mice. This followed his 2019 paper linking prion strain targeting to reactive astrocyte CD44.
• He is first author of about a dozen prion papers from 2009 to 2024. Topics include peripheral and gut routes of prion spread, dendritic cells, gut microbiota and a 2014 review of human prion disease transmission risk during anatomical dissection. Nearly all are with Mabbott, and he coauthored the 2025 TREM2 and lipopolysaccharide prion studies.
• He is second author, after Yixin Zhu and before Mabbott, of the scoping review Therapeutic strategies in prion disease, published 3 September 2026 in Frontiers in Neuroscience.

Timeline

1. 2000Joins the Institute for Animal Health Neuropathogenesis Unit and begins prion research.
2. 2009First author J Neurosci paper on prion protein in Schwann cells and neuroinvasion.
3. 2016Awarded PhD by the University of Edinburgh.
4. 2021Promoted to Lecturer at the Roslin Institute.
5. 2022Glia paper on microglia deficiency accelerating prion disease published online.
6. 2024Scientific Reports paper on CD44 in reactive astrocytes during prion disease published.
7. 2025Appointed associate member of the Food Standards Agency Advisory Committee on Animal Feedingstuffs, term to 2027.
8. 2026CJD Foundation funded stem cell gene therapy project starts, with him as co-investigator.
9. 2026Therapeutic strategies in prion disease review published with Zhu and Mabbott.